Dr. Richard Kurin

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FREER|SACKLER BIO Dr. Richard Kurin Acting Director of the Arthur M. Sackler Gallery and the Freer Gallery of Art As a member of the Smithsonian’s senior leadership team, Kurin helps guide the Institution’s national museums, preeminent research centers, and educational programs with a staff of 6,500 and annual budget of $1.5 billion. His areas of focus are the Smithsonian’s strategic direction, institutional partnerships, public representation, philanthropic support, and special initiatives. In early 2018, he took on the additional duties of serving as acting director of the Freer|Sackler following the retirement of longtime director Julian Raby. An anthropologist with a PhD from the University of Chicago, Kurin specialized in the study of South Asia and Muslim societies. He has held Fulbright and Social Science Research Council Fellowships, taught at the Johns Hopkins University School of Advanced International Studies, and authored six books and scores of scholarly articles. He coordinated the Smithsonian’s Festival of India programs in the 1980s, has collaborated closely with Yo-Yo Ma and the Silkroad Ensemble since the late 1990s, and has continued to work on a variety of projects throughout Asia over a forty-year career. Prior to his current roles, Kurin served as the Smithsonian’s acting provost and under secretary for museums and research from 2015, and from 2007 he served as under secretary for history, art, and culture. He was responsible for oversight of all of the Smithsonian’s museums, scientific research, and cultural centers. For two decades before that, Kurin directed the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, overseeing the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall and Smithsonian Folkways Recordings. Kurin was appointed by successive secretaries of state to the US National Commission for UNESCO and helped draft an international treaty to safeguard living cultural heritage, now ratified by 170 nations. He led efforts to save heritage in Haiti after the 2010 earthquake and has overseen projects for saving heritage endangered by natural disaster in Nepal and the United States, and by human conflict in Mali, Egypt, Iraq, and Syria. Kurin served as liaison to the US President’s Committee on the Ofce of Marketing and Communications Freer Gallery of Art and Arthur M. Sackler Gallery freersackler.si.edu | [email protected] | 202.633.0271 FREER|SACKLER 2 Arts and the Humanities and the White House Historical Association, and he chairs a task group for the US Department of State Cultural Heritage Coordinating Committee. He is a board member of the International Alliance for the Protection of Heritage in Conflict Areas (ALIPH) and serves on the Visiting Committee for the Social Sciences at the University of Chicago. He has been honored by Harvard University’s Peabody Museum, the International Council of Museums, the American Anthropological Association, the American Folklore Society, and the Smithsonian, and he is an elected fellow of the American Academy of the Arts and Sciences. .

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The Haitian Cultural Recovery Project an Interview with Dr
The Haitian Cultural Recovery Project An interview with Dr. Richard Kurin Dr. Richard Kurin is Under Editor: Can you say a few words about what Haitian arts and crafts were sold in the Secretary for History, Art, and your project is and how it came to be? Festival shop.) Culture at the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC. The Interview took RK: Basically we are working with Haitian, A turning point came when Cori Wegener, place on July 20, 2010. American, and international organizations Associate Curator at the Minneapolis Institute to help recover and restore Haiti’s cultural of Arts and president of the U.S. Committee heritage, and ensure Haiti’s ongoing of the Blue Shield called a meeting in early cultural vitality. February in Washington on the cultural devastation in Haiti. The Blue Shield is We became heavily involved because we affiliated with international museum, library, had many cultural contacts in Haiti dating and archives organizations and assists from our work with that country in 2003 nations whose cultural heritage has been and 2004. Haiti’s art, music, foodways, and threatened by man-made or natural disasters. other traditions were featured at the 2004 http://www.uscbs.org/ Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the National Mall. (Dr. Kurin is the former director of the Hosted by the American Association of Smithsonian’s Center for Folklife and Cultural Museums, the meeting began with a survey Heritage.) When the earthquake struck Haiti of the cultural damage in Haiti. There was so on January 12, 2010, our first thought was, of much devastation, apparent from photographs course, to find out if our friends and colleagues circulated by ISPAN—Haiti’s cultural were physically safe.
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U.S. Consideration of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention Richard Kurin
Document generated on 09/25/2021 5:44 a.m. Ethnologies U.S. Consideration of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention Richard Kurin Patrimoine culturel immatériel Article abstract Intangible Cultural Heritage UNESCO, the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, Volume 36, Number 1-2, 2014 voted overwhelmingly at the biennial meeting of its General Conference in Paris on October 17, 2003 to adopt a new international Convention for the URI: https://id.erudit.org/iderudit/1037612ar Safeguarding of Intangible Cultural Heritage. That Convention became DOI: https://doi.org/10.7202/1037612ar international law on April 30, 2006. By the end of 2006 it had been ratified or accepted by 68 countries; today, that number is approaching universal acceptance with more than 160 nations having acceded to the convention. At See table of contents the 2003 session, some 120 nation-members voted for the convention; more registered their support subsequently. No one voted against it; only a handful of nations abstained – Australia, Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United Publisher(s) States among them. Within some of those nations, debate over whether to ratify the treaty continues. In this paper, the author considers the convention Association Canadienne d’Ethnologie et de Folklore and unofficially examines the U.S. government position with regard to why support for it was withheld in 2003, how deliberations have proceeded since ISSN then, and whether or not the U.S. might ultimately accept the treaty. 1481-5974 (print) 1708-0401 (digital) Explore this journal Cite this article Kurin, R. (2014). U.S. Consideration of the Intangible Cultural Heritage Convention.
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“Northern Ireland at the Smithsonian”
“NORTHERN IRELAND AT THE SMITHSONIAN” REPORT ON PARTICIPATION IN THE 41ST SMITHSONIAN FOLKLIFE FESTIVAL, 2007 Report by Pat Wilson NI Project Manager Smithsonian Unit June 2008 1 CONTENTS Page EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 5 - 36 MAIN REPORT 37 -111 1. INTRODUCTION 38 The Smithsonian Folklife Festival 38 The Rediscover Northern Ireland Programme 38 2. BACKGROUND 40 Memorandum of Understanding 40 Financial Memorandum 41 Budget 42 3. DELIVERY STRUCTURES 45 Steering Groups 45 Leadership Group including VIPs 45 Coordinating Group 45 Curatorial Group 46 Administrative / Coordinating Team 46 4. LOGISTICS 50 Transportation and Freight 50 Flights 52 A c c ommodation 53 Insurance 54 5. COMMERCIAL ACTIVITIES 55 Marketplace 55 Food Concession 57 Folkways Recording 60 2 Sponsorship 61 6. COMMUNICATIONS 65 Marketing & Public Relations 65 Website 66 Media Handling 68 7. FESTIVAL 69 Political Support 69 Programming Logistics 70 Research 70 Themes for programme content 71 8 December 2006: reveal of outline programme 72 Administration 72 Issue of invitations, recording of acceptance and 73 associated consequentials Special events prior to attending the Festival 74 Receptions & Events in Washington DC 77 Opening Ceremony 79 8. POST FESTIVAL ACTIVITIES 82 Surveys and evaluation 82 Participants and sponsors’ feedback 82 Smithsonian Survey 82 DCAL survey of participants and sponsors 83 Conclusion of administration matters including 83 payments Capture and collation of research materials, 84 recordings and filmed materials 9. MONITORING AND MEASURING PERFORMANCE 84 3 10. CHALLENGES / LESSONS LEARNED 97/102 11. LEGACY OPPORTUNITIES 103 12. CONCLUSION 110 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank our colleagues in the Smithsonian Institution, Richard Kurin, Diana Parker, Barbara Strickland and especially Nancy Groce who made it possible for Northern Ireland to demonstrate its cultural traditions on the National Mall at the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival in 2007.
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Smithsonian Institution (SI) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes, 2013-2017
Description of document: Smithsonian Institution (SI) Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden Board of Trustees Meeting Minutes, 2013-2017 Requested date: 18-June-2017 Released date: 03-October-2018 Posted date: 15-October-2018 Source of document: Records Request Assistant General Counsel Smithsonian Institution Office of General Counsel MRC 012 PO Box 37012 Washington, DC 20013-7012 Fax: 202-357-4310 Email: [email protected] The governmentattic.org web site (“the site”) is noncommercial and free to the public. The site and materials made available on the site, such as this file, are for reference only. The governmentattic.org web site and its principals have made every effort to make this information as complete and as accurate as possible, however, there may be mistakes and omissions, both typographical and in content. The governmentattic.org web site and its principals shall have neither liability nor responsibility to any person or entity with respect to any loss or damage caused, or alleged to have been caused, directly or indirectly, by the information provided on the governmentattic.org web site or in this file. The public records published on the site were obtained from government agencies using proper legal channels. Each document is identified as to the source. Any concerns about the contents of the site should be directed to the agency originating the document in question. GovernmentAttic.org is not responsible for the contents of documents published on the website. 0 Smithsonian Institution Office of General Counsel VIA US MAIL October 3, 2018 RE: Your Request for Smithsonian Records (request number 48730) This responds to your request, dated June 18, 2017 and received in this Office on June 27, 2017, for "a copy of the meeting minutes from the Hirschhorn (sic) Museum Board of Trustees, during the time period 2013 to present." The Smithsonian responds to requests for records in accordance with Smithsonian Directive 807 - Requests for Smithsonian Institution Information (SD 807) and applies a presumption of disclosure when processing such requests.
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Inclusive Museum
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The Festival: Making Culture Public
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Q2 FY 2012 EDITED.Indd
Scores of people, including President Barack Obama, gathered on the National Mallon February 22, 2012, to celebrate the historic groundbreaking for the National Museum of African American History and Culture. Pictured, from left to right, are Museum Council Cochair Richard D. Parsons, Board Vice Chair Patricia Q. Stonesifer, former First Lady Laura Bush, Smithsonian Secretary G. Wayne Clough, Museum Director Lonnie Bunch; Under Secretary for History, Art, and Culture Richard Kurin, Board Chair France Córdova, and Museum Council Cochair Linda Johnson Rice. Report to the Regents Second Quarter, Fiscal Year 2012 Broadening Access: Visitation Summary Th rough the second quarter of fi scal year 2012, the Smithsonian counted approximately 10.6 million visits to its museums and exhibition venues in Washington, D.C., and New York, plus the National Zoological Park and Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center. Th is was similar to the fi gure for the fi rst two quarters of fi scal year 2011. Th e Smithsonian also counted about 40 million unique visitors to its websites and approximately 2 million visitors to traveling exhibitions mounted by the Smithsonian Th e Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service’s Jim Henson’s Fantastic World at the Museum Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. of the Moving Image Visits to Smithsonian Venues First Two Quarters, Fiscal Years 2010, 2011, and 2012 3,000,000 2,500,000 2,000,000 1,500,000 FY 2010 FY 2011 1,000,000 FY 2012 500,000 0 Postal SI Castle SI Renwick Anacostia Hirshhorn African Art African Udvar-Hazy National Zoo Ripley Center Ripley Air and Space Freer/Sackler Natural History Heye Center-NY American Indian Reynolds Center Reynolds American History American Cooper-Hewitt-NY Report to the Regents, June 2012 1 Grand Challenges Highlights Understanding and Sustaining a Biodiverse Planet Research: Smithsonian Environmental Research Center (SERC) In this quarter, SERC researchers published 26 papers in 20 peer- reviewed journals.
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Folklife in Contemporary Multicultural Society
FoLKLIFE IN CoNTEMPORARY MuLTICULTURAL SociETY Richard Kurin ew demographic, political, economic and long term sustainable development (Cultural Survival ecological realities have recently joined on Quarterly 1982 6(2), 1984 8(3), 1987 11(1)). The ongo a global scale to bring cultural issues to the ing, systematic destruction of the tropical rainforest for N fore. Talk about "culture" - usually con industrial and agricultural purposes contrasts sharply signed to the back sections of newspapers, to academic with its use by its original human inhabitants. Indige circles and to abstract critical discussions- has recently nous people of the rainforests generally have developed emerged as a major subject of current events requiring systems of knowledge and resource use that conserve serious and broad consideration. both nature and culture. Traditional, local relationships In the United States the 1990 Census will reveal the with an environment, be it rainforest, wetland, moun continuation of a trend toward an ethnically diverse tainous region, sea coast or other area, are most often population. Sometime in the middle of the next century more ecologically sound than those of advanced indus most Americans will be identified as of African Ameri trial society. can, Asian American, Hispanic or other "minority" back These events and trends are both sobering and ground. The "majority," already a broad and varied humbling. They remind us that grass-roots, people's category of European Americans, will have become the culture - folklife - a residual category for many "minority." The implications of this demographic shift, decades if not the entire century, is an important force already well along in some areas of the United States, in the world today, directly affecting demographic, po has sparked debate on the public use of languages other litical, economic and ecological change.
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